


day the world went away (and the weeks that followed)

by Checro



Category: Left 4 Dead, Left 4 Dead 2, The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, I don't know what else to say, M/M, but we're back to funny by the end, i think it's kinda funny, nobody dies or anything, then it gets serious
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-07 22:04:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3184862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Checro/pseuds/Checro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And Thorin, shotgun sitting across his lap as he carefully reloaded it, managed a glare in his nephew's direction. “Tell me, Kili. Who died and made me the gun monitor?”</p><p>Bilbo answered for the lad, hauling himself to his feet, his revolver held tightly in both hands. “Pretty much everybody.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	day the world went away (and the weeks that followed)

**Author's Note:**

> I've deliberately made a lot of L4D2 references in here (including an entire campaign, bite me) but if you haven't played the game, I'm pretty sure this could read as a regular 'zombie!au' fic.
> 
> Also, the ending's a bit silly. But I had to do it.

“This isn't going to work,” Kili declared.

“I'll tell you what isn't going to  _work_ ,” Fili replied, trying to yank the suppressor off the SMG in his hands. “This  _machine pistol._  I've seen children play badminton with better accuracy and I can't get the suppressor off, Uncle I think it's--”

“Don't talk to him, Fili,” Kili said quickly. “He left our good guns on the boat.”

Kili seemed to be fighting with the magazine on his hunting rifle and Thorin, shotgun sitting across his lap as he carefully reloaded it, managed a glare in his nephew's direction. “Tell me, Kili. Who died and made me the gun monitor?”

Bilbo answered for the lad, hauling himself to his feet, his revolver held tightly in both hands. “Pretty much everybody.”

The suburb, what was  _barely_  still a suburb, was a collection of ruined buildings and car fires. A flickering neon sign towered over a diner which was deemed an acceptable place to go through what weapons their little group  _did_  have, if only because it had doors that would shut and enough intact windows to keep the undead from noticing them provided they didn't start yelling and hopping around and generally drawing attention.

As they stepped outside, listening to the little bell overhead go  _ding ding ding_ , the group of four looked up and down the street, considering carefully. Both ways appeared empty at first, but they all knew the infected were lurking.

“Now what we need,” Fili went on, tapping his fingers against the side of his SMG (little more than sheet metal and springs, and he  _still_  hadn't managed to get the suppressor off), “is some guns with higher caliber. Stopping power. Not some piece of--”

“Well, we don't  _have_  anything with stopping power,” Thorin growled, clearly fed up with his nephew's complaining. Glass crunched underfoot and Bilbo grimaced as he stepped in something he really would rather not try and identify. “We use what we have. Where's Kili?”

Fili immediately snapped to attention. They'd made it six steps out of the diner, they  _couldn't_  have lost him already.

“Here,” the youngest of their motley group said, a sheepish grin on his face as he held up a spare pistol, passing it to his brother. “Found an extra one of these by the cash register.”

Thorin grunted. “Don't do it again,” was all he said as he made sure everyone had a weapon in-hand, along with whatever other supplies they might need. Bilbo had a steady supply of pipe bombs, and the ability to make them. Kili scrounged up medical supplies. Fili had more ammunition and spare weapons on him than Thorin could count. They'd be... they'd be fine.

“Looks like the sun's going down,” Fili said as they walked, clearly uncomfortable with lingering silence. “Might rain later.”

“Right,” Bilbo said, straightening his coat. “Let's get to the petrol station, get the petrol, get back on the boat. Why couldn't I stay on the boat?”

“Mister Boggins, you  _always_  get to stay on the boat,” Kili said.

“You always get to stay on the boat,” Thorin confirmed.

Bilbo sighed. They had a point. He simply didn't feel  _prepared_  for this. In fact, he felt outright useless. Not that anyone could truly have prepared for the  _zombie-filled end of days_ , of course, and Bilbo wouldn't have expected them to, but he was a creature of simple comforts. Not one used to fighting.

“Come oooon,” Kili said, slapping him across the back as they made their way down the road. “Killing zombies? That's  _fun_  if you let it be. Challenging work, it's outside where you can get fresh air, it's good for your heart--”

Thorin took the lead, looked left, took out the first of the infected he saw with a single headshot. It slumped to the ground.

“-- helps you stay in shape--” Kili went on.

The group moved out into the street, Thorin in the lead, taking out any zombies that got close to their group with a shot to the head (or whatever was easiest, shotguns made  _aiming_  less of a priority at close-range), Kili and Bilbo kept in the middle, taking out the infected at mid-range, the  _crack_  of Kili's hunting rifle as he managed startlingly accurate shots to the heads of stronger-looking zombies accompanied the  _bang_  of Bilbo's revolver as shambling silhouettes dropped from the hoods of cars or to the ground in doorways before they even caught sight of their potential prey. Fili kept in back, alert for movement behind them, ensuring that they would  _not_  be taken by surprise.

It took quite a while to reach a gas station that hadn't been taken for all but the paint on the walls. There wasn't much conversation, and even the young brothers had a hard time getting rid of the silence. Nobody wanted to talk about how long they'd been running, or how they were just chasing rumors, heading down south like they were, or how far it still was to New Orleans, and the tiny grain of hope it promised.

After shooting a zombie that had slammed into Kili, and helping him back to his feet, Fili snagged something from one of Kili's jacket pockets. A frown crossed Thorin's face as curiosity got the better of him. “What's that?”

“What's what?” Fili asked innocently, attempting to shove the mysterious item into his own pocket, but Thorin snatched it from him.

“Is this... is this a harmonica?”

“Well,  _yes_ ,” Fili said. And then, “It's Bofur's.”

His uncle gave him what both boys liked to call  _Uncle Thorin's Don't Test Me Face_  and Kili quickly elaborated.

“I took it from Nori! We're playing a game.”

“What sort of game?” Thorin asked, turning around just long enough to fill a zombie running toward them with lead, then back.

“We, Kili and Nori and me, we're taking things from everyone. Sentimental shit. Then we put them back when people start to look disheartened. They go  _oh, I thought I lost this._ Nori started it, but it works. It makes them feel just a little better,” Fili answered, and Thorin's glare did not lessen in the least.

“Look, we're getting our  _minds_  off all this, Uncle, and everyone else's too, if only for a  _second_. It's not like we keep anything forever,” Kili added, quick to back up his brother, especially when he  _knew_  they were right. He shot a spitter through the skull and watched as the resulting acid pooled at its feet, blessedly far enough away that they wouldn't have to deal with it.

“But why are you taking things from  _each other?_ ” Bilbo wondered, and Thorin mentally congratulated him on keeping track of that little detail, one he'd forgotten to focus on due to the absurdity of the 'game' as a whole.

“Oh. That's for us. Nori says he can take anything, we've been trying to hang onto all the stuff,” Kili answered with a half-grin. “If he gets to put it back, he gains a point. If we do, we get the point. Look, Thorin, we're just keeping morale up.”

Thorin seemed about to go on when a dark blur caught his attention a split-second too late, and Kili was thrown teeth-first into the sidewalk and the hunter sat atop his chest, tearing at his coat, his chest, his  _skin_. “Get it off!” he howled and Fili smashed it off with the butt of his gun, hard enough to crack bone as Bilbo fired his revolver at its chest, then again at its head. Thorin helped his nephew back to his feet, talk of games forgotten.

“You're bleeding,” Fili said, reaching for some of the first-aid supplies he carried, but Kili shook his head.

“Save it.”

 

 

\----

 

 

They reached the gas station later than they'd intended to. The rain had started to fall in sheets and they slogged into the building, exhausted. The roof was leaking. It took them an absurd amount of time to get four full canisters of gas (one for each of them to carry, any more and they'd be weighed down). On the wall, people had scribbled messages in permanent marker.

 

 

> RATION THE GAS.
> 
> Matthias, Headed to New Orleans Meet you there! Love Carolina
> 
> JAXTON took your sisters to New Orleans, Meet us at Kate's House BE CAREFUL! - Dad
> 
> Steph B, Bring the little boys It's safe here You're strong, See you soon - Love Mike
> 
> The gas is here for ALL of us, take only what you need
> 
> Stay away from the sugar mill, it's full of witches.
> 
> Ian, Passed through on October 7th, Hurry and catch up! -Mia
> 
> Take what you need. Leave some gas for the rest of us.
> 
> Screw you guys, I'm taking everything I can carry!

 

Fili frowned at that last message, digging around in his coat pockets until he'd scrounged up a Sharpie, then scribbled a note of his own underneath:

 

> If I see anyone carrying more than one gallon of gas, I will shoot them, no questions asked.

 

They rested for a time, cleaning up cuts and bruises.

Kili's insistence that he was  _fine, really, save it, it's not that bad_  was met with a glare from his uncle, a Stern Older Brother look from Fili, and a disapproving frown from Bilbo. Nobody could keep strong in the face of all of that, he decided, as his uncle patched him up as best he could.

“I think we should be really careful out there,” Bilbo warned, and Fili was about to ask why when he reached one of the front-room windows. The water was knee-height at least. As Bilbo opened the door, water rushed in quick enough that he doubted they'd be able to close it again. Hopping up onto a no-doubt ruined car, Thorin surveyed the area.

“Be careful,” he agreed.

“Fuck,” Fili exhaled. One at a time, they waded into the water, keeping as quiet as they could. Fighting hordes of infected was difficult enough when they could walk and not fall over. All four men clung to their guns and supplies, knowing that anything dropped would be carried away by the flood waters and likely never seen again.

It was as they were fighting their way back through the sugar mill (an experience all were prepared to do again, but only because going around the vast factory and barbed-wire fencing would take far too long) that Thorin slipped. He was stumbling already, boots slipping on soaking wet metal, when he dropped out of sight. Bilbo's revolver dropped from his hands as he scrambled after him, holding onto the larger man's sleeve as Thorin's legs kicked, trying to find some sort of footing on rain-slick metal.

Their eyes locked through the rain, though Bilbo had to fight to keep his eyes open against it. One second passed, then two, then three. On four, Thorin slipped out of his jacket and there was a  _splash_  as he disappeared under the rising floodwater.

“Don't jump in—” Fili began.

Bilbo jumped in, swinging his legs down first and dropping hard. Arms in the water, it didn't take him long to find Thorin and tug his head above rushing water. Thorin gasped, coughed, clung to Bilbo. His shotgun had disappeared. Neither of them really paid much attention to that fact.

“You all right down there?” Kili called, hoping for an affirmative.

“Yes!” Bilbo called back, then Thorin muttered something, a grunt of pain slipping past him as he tried to stand up straight. Bilbo caught him, lowered both of them into as much of a crouch as was possible in two-foot water. “No-- Thorin?”

“Ankle,” Thorin managed, another pained sound slipping past him despite making  _every_  effort to keep them back.

“Twisted?” Bilbo asked, wide-eyed.

“Broken."

Fili's head appeared by Kili's, blond hair tangled and tied down with what appeared to be a scrap of his shirt. “Can you climb up and get back to us?”

“No,” Bilbo said, finding his voice once more. “No, he's hurt his ankle!”

“Well... you're on the right side, at least, so you won't have to go around! I've got your revolver, Bilbo,” Fili said, tossing it to him. Bilbo caught it, barely. “It'll be slow going back. We can cover you!”

“Don't waste time,” Thorin snapped, pain evidently subsided enough that he was capable of more than two syllables at a time. “Bilbo and I will meet you back at the diner!”

Bilbo hoisted Thorin's arm over his shoulder and hauled them both upright. Thorin sucked in a breath between his teeth. Bilbo winced in sympathy.

“You two be  _careful_!” Kili called, voice withdrawing, and there was reluctance in it, but he listened.

Bilbo drew Thorin in tight, hand clenched on Thorin's sleeve. “It's only a... a half-mile or so. Let's see some of that stubbornness you seem to never be without.”

Thorin didn't respond to the stubbornness crack. He didn't say anything at all. Bilbo felt it when the other man started to shiver, but Thorin's jacket was long gone now. Gunfire could be heard from up ahead. Fili and Kili were clearing a path for them. Bilbo's revolver was more difficult to use one-handed, but he managed to keep what few infected the brothers hadn't killed off of them.

Eventually, Thorin seemed to buckle under his own weight, or the shivering became too much, or the pain was worse than Bilbo had assumed.

“Thorin--” he began.

“Mister Baggins, I'm sorry. I called you a burden and now I--”

“Thorin, I was a bit of a burden. I've never held a gun before this and--”

“I know, but what you must think of--”

“I think no less of you. You're hurt. We're being chased by zombies. Thorin, nobody is prepared for that. Nobody  _can_  be.”

“It would be simpler for you if you were to just leave me--”

“I am not going to simply abandon you,” Bilbo soothed him, then added, in jest, “Your nephews would never forgive me.”

“But I'm slowing you down. If more infected come—”

“I'm  _not_  going to abandon you, Thorin.”

The silence that unfolded between them was softened by the blessedly-lessening rain. At last, Thorin said, “I can keep walking. Can you help me up?”

“Yes,” Bilbo said, a ghost of a smile on his face. “You know, weather like this, it suits the mood, don't you think?”

That got a snort from Thorin. The humor helped, in its way, and they continued on in companionable silence before Thorin spoke up once more.

“Mister Baggins?”

“Hmm?”

“Thank you. For--”

Two zombies tumbled out of a suburban home's lower window and shambled toward them. Thorin pulled his emergency pistol from its holster and fired, fired,  _kept_  firing even after they stopped moving. Until the clip had emptied.

“... For?” Bilbo prompted, a worried look on his face. Thorin glanced at him.

“For what?”

“Never mind. There's the diner.”

“Uncle!” Kili cried, and Fili's head jerked toward them both, a relieved grin breaking out over his face.

“About time you showed up,” the elder brother said, gesturing to the flickering sign above the diner. “We found where the power for this the sign comes from. Look, we need to signal the boat, but Gloin's parked it way off. Safe of him, sure, but--”

Thorin gestured for him to get to the point and Fili stopped himself from going on too long.

“We're going to get the power on again.  _Probably_  won't just turn on the sign.”

“The horde's going to be excited,” Thorin said with a resigned sigh. “We'll be lighting the whole neighborhood up, won't we?”

“Not all of it,” Kili said quickly. “ _Probably_. Just... enough to get the others' attention.”

“And the zombies' attention.”

“ _Yes,_  Uncle, but unless you have a better idea, you can... you're still limping.”

“That's what a  _broken_  ankle means,” Bilbo chimed in.

“Can still fire a gun, right?” Fili asked as he and Kili stooped to help their uncle onto higher ground.

“Yes, I can still fire a gun, Fili.”

“Good,” Fili said, slamming a fresh magazine into his SMG once they were all in defensible postions. “Then let's kill some sons of bitches.”

 

 

\----

 

 

“First aid kits used:

Thorin: 2

Kili: 1

Fili: 0

Bilbo: 0

 

“Pain pills taken:

Thorin: 3

Bilbo: 2

Kili: 2

Fili: 0

 

“Pipe bombs used:

Bilbo: 4

Fili: 1

Kili: 1

Thorin: 0

 

“Melee kills:

Fili: 148

Kili: 33

Thorin: 21

Bilbo: 1--”

 

“What... is Bilbo talking about?” Bofur, as was typical for him, decided to ask what everyone else was thinking.

“They're, ah, our stats for the evening,” Thorin explained, and if there was a fondness underneath his surliness, nobody mentioned it.

 

“Special infected killed:

Thorin: 16

Kili: 11

Fili: 9

Bilbo: 4

 

“Common infected killed:

Fili: 509

Thorin: 489

Kili: 401

Bilbo: 245--"

 

“No, there is  _no way_  Mister Boggins had time to  _count_  them all,” Kili said.

“He's very organized,” Nori chimed in. “Ori sometimes keeps statistics for all kinds of things.”

“ _Does_  he?”

“Mhm.”

“Like this?”

“M _hm_.”

“I'm so sorry.”

“Apologize to Dori. He's the one taking care of him.”

 

“Damage taken:

Thorin: 198

Kili: 67--”

 

“What unit of measurement is 'damage,' exactly?” Balin wondered.

 

"Bilbo: 47

Fili: 10--"

 

“I wouldn't interrupt him,” Thorin advised. “He's never satisfied until he finishes.”

“That's what sh--”

“Bofur... just don't.”

 

“Friendly fire:

Kili: 47%-- oh for the love of--  _Kili!”_

 

“Look, I'm doing my best!"

 

“-- Fili: 9%

Thorin: 7%

Bilbo: 0%”

 

And the boat sailed around the turn.

 

_1664 zombies were harmed in the writing of this story._


End file.
